


helter-skelter

by floatawaysomedays



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 23:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floatawaysomedays/pseuds/floatawaysomedays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an anniversary drabble type thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	helter-skelter

Dean meets a drone of an angel in an abandoned barn. Lightning flashes, sparks fly. His knuckles are still bloody from crawling out of his grave. The angel’s hair sticks up. wildly, and he smirks down at the knife that’s buried in his chest. The knife  _Dean_  put there. He sweeps in like a hurricane, fierce and sudden, a force to be reckoned with. Dean never believed, never wanted to, but the proof won’t stop  _staring_  at him. And his eyes are so blue, Dean can’t fucking _breathe_.

**~*~**

Dean finds out what angels are terrified of in Waterville, Maine. When a woman takes Cas’s hand and smiles at him. He raises his beer, and nods his encouragement. Cas takes the money, and glances back only twice. It’s funny, afterwards.  Dean grins all the way back to the old house. He looks across to the passenger’s seat, once. And Cas is so deadpan most of the time, the answering grin he wears that night is like cool water in the desert storm of the Apocalypse.

**~*~**

Dean argues with him in Bobby’s living room. They’ve had this out already, but it feels more personal this time around. More searing. Like the knife broke the skin before, but now Cas is just twisting it deeper. Driving it home every time he shakes his head, or sighs. Dean has a sudden revelation that he doesn’t even  _know_  Cas. Not really. Dean is barely a blink in Castiel’s fathomless existence. And he wonders what might have been if they were just two guys in a supermarket who touched hands by accident, instead of an angel and a hunter with unwanted destiny written on their hearts.

**~*~**

Dean loses his best friend to the tune of _let’s go down, down in the river to pray,_ except he’s long past praying. He thought he knew grief, and he does. He’s grieved before, but not like this. He gets drunk because the haze of alcohol is a form of medication, and Dean has a lifetime prescription. His nightmares are rivaled only by his daydreams. And he tries not to think about the dried blood on the coat in his trunk, and the tattered picture of him and Sam in the pocket.

**~*~**

Dean hugs his dumbstruck best friend in purgatory. He clings until he can’t anymore, because he fought and prayed and carved his way to Cas. He’s earned a few moments of unbridled joy. The ache in his chest eases a bit, he feels like something has clicked into place again. Cas tries to explain, and Dean hears most of it. He’s whole, _alive_. And Dean irrationally refuses to tear his eyes away, terrified that this could be the last time he sees the torn trench coat and the angel that wears it like armor.

**~*~**

Dean kisses Cas in the front seat in the middle of a rainstorm. Lightning flashes, thunder rolls. Castiel’s clothes are soaked from the rain. He’s dirty and exhausted. But when Dean abandons the keys in the ignition to press his lips against Castiel’s, the former angel doesn’t hesitate. He tangles a hand in Dean’s new leather jacket, and holds on tight, deepens the kiss until it isn’t chaste. Until Dean slides across the bench seat to  wrap Cas in his arms. And when they pull away Cas’s eyes are so bright that Dean tucks him under his chin, and sobs out his first deep breath in years.


End file.
